4 ms·

Based on recent history Warren certainly isn't a run of the mill middle of the pack Democrat. Her positions on banking, big business, healthcare and big tech co

by untog 7y ago

Based on recent history Warren certainly isn't a run of the mill middle of the pack Democrat. Her positions on banking, big business, healthcare and big tech companies is a leftward lean even when compared to Obama's tenure. > The government needs to be reformed, electing one party or another President isn't going to change much And pontificating about how "the system is broken" doesn't change anything. There are no actual concrete steps to reforming government that doesn't involve elections and gradual process, or revolution and sudden progress. If you think the latter is in any way likely then you're deluded.

zajd 7y ago
> Based on recent history Warren certainly isn't a run of the mill middle of the pack Democrat. Her positions on banking, big business, healthcare and big tech companies is a leftward lean even when compared to Obama's tenure. Obama is a conservative democrat (or a liberal republican, you can't really tell these days) so you're not putting the bar high.
hannasanarion 7y ago
Obama held almost all those positions during the primary in '08. Why do you trust Warren to follow through when Obama didn't?
- untog 7y ago
  He didn't, though. He advocated improving healthcare, but not to the extent that Warren does. And he castigated the banking industry but never proposed anything at the level Warren is proposing. Besides, this isn't even the question. The OP said that Warren is a middle of the road Democrat. Compared to the positions held by the average Democrat Senator/Congressperson she isn't at all. Whether she'd follow through on those promises when elected is a valid question (though much like Obama, it wouldn't be under her sole control), but that doesn't mean she isn't left-leaning.
  - hannasanarion 7y ago
    To what extent does Warren advocate improving healthcare? She went from "medicarefor all" to "actually medicare is just a framework" in just a month. On her platform page she seems to have abandoned single-payer entirely. How can you trust a candidate who changes platform from progressive to milquetoast centrist so quickly? How can you trust a candidate who said several months ago that she wants to eliminate billionaires, and yet who continues to get major contributions from at least twenty billionaires? I find it very hard to believe that Warren is genuinely left-leaning. Based on her behavior, it seems to me much more like she is a centrist candidate wrapping centrist ideas in left rhetoric.
- cure 7y ago
  You probably haven't met Warren. She's a force of nature. She's data driven, and extremely tenacious.
logfromblammo 7y ago
Both parties are constantly changing and jockeying for position in response to shifts in the political tastes of both the general public and the general public with money. Warren might have seemed barely to the left in historic eras. She only seems left now because the recent stretches with the "left" party in control have all been very centrist. Big businesses have been allowed to grow bigger, and organized labor unions have been just treading water federally, as the individual states have been pulling their teeth with "right to work" and "at will" employment laws. Media consolidation and campaign finance has been driving it. The median voter does not have a reliable, unbiased source of information to drive their decisions, so it's "Garbage In, Garbage Out" politics. Control the inputs to influence the outputs. One faction seems to be experimenting with packing all the main channels with misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and psyops, and that seems to be worth about 40% of the vote, if the polling is honest and accurate. The antipodal position to this would be to invest more into public education, independent journalism, legislation penalizing prevarication or material omissions by public officeholders and appointees, anti-secrecy and public disclosure (or "sunshine") laws, and overhaul of broadcast licensing. The issues Warren is focusing on seem more concerned with the flows of money than the flows of information. It's the latter that will produce government reform in a democracy. Going after Facebook is easy. They're a big, obvious target, and Zuckerberg isn't tremendously charismatic. But Facebook is just one business. Political disinformation is an entire industry.

by untog 7y ago

zajd 7y ago

> Based on recent history Warren certainly isn't a run of the mill middle of the pack Democrat. Her positions on banking, big business, healthcare and big tech companies is a leftward lean even when compared to Obama's tenure. Obama is a conservative democrat (or a liberal republican, you can't really tell these days) so you're not putting the bar high.

hannasanarion 7y ago

Obama held almost all those positions during the primary in '08. Why do you trust Warren to follow through when Obama didn't?

untog 7y ago
He didn't, though. He advocated improving healthcare, but not to the extent that Warren does. And he castigated the banking industry but never proposed anything at the level Warren is proposing. Besides, this isn't even the question. The OP said that Warren is a middle of the road Democrat. Compared to the positions held by the average Democrat Senator/Congressperson she isn't at all. Whether she'd follow through on those promises when elected is a valid question (though much like Obama, it wouldn't be under her sole control), but that doesn't mean she isn't left-leaning.
- hannasanarion 7y ago
  To what extent does Warren advocate improving healthcare? She went from "medicarefor all" to "actually medicare is just a framework" in just a month. On her platform page she seems to have abandoned single-payer entirely. How can you trust a candidate who changes platform from progressive to milquetoast centrist so quickly? How can you trust a candidate who said several months ago that she wants to eliminate billionaires, and yet who continues to get major contributions from at least twenty billionaires? I find it very hard to believe that Warren is genuinely left-leaning. Based on her behavior, it seems to me much more like she is a centrist candidate wrapping centrist ideas in left rhetoric.
cure 7y ago
You probably haven't met Warren. She's a force of nature. She's data driven, and extremely tenacious.

logfromblammo 7y ago

Both parties are constantly changing and jockeying for position in response to shifts in the political tastes of both the general public and the general public with money. Warren might have seemed barely to the left in historic eras. She only seems left now because the recent stretches with the "left" party in control have all been very centrist. Big businesses have been allowed to grow bigger, and organized labor unions have been just treading water federally, as the individual states have been pulling their teeth with "right to work" and "at will" employment laws. Media consolidation and campaign finance has been driving it. The median voter does not have a reliable, unbiased source of information to drive their decisions, so it's "Garbage In, Garbage Out" politics. Control the inputs to influence the outputs. One faction seems to be experimenting with packing all the main channels with misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and psyops, and that seems to be worth about 40% of the vote, if the polling is honest and accurate. The antipodal position to this would be to invest more into public education, independent journalism, legislation penalizing prevarication or material omissions by public officeholders and appointees, anti-secrecy and public disclosure (or "sunshine") laws, and overhaul of broadcast licensing. The issues Warren is focusing on seem more concerned with the flows of money than the flows of information. It's the latter that will produce government reform in a democracy. Going after Facebook is easy. They're a big, obvious target, and Zuckerberg isn't tremendously charismatic. But Facebook is just one business. Political disinformation is an entire industry.